Disclaimer: Pet Fly owns them. This is the first story in the AU series Raising Ellison. Much thanks to my betas, Caro Dee, Sheila and WoD.
Even with the lights in the parking lot, Blair hated carrying groceries out to his car at night, always worried he’d trip on something he couldn’t see. He was juggling the bags of groceries, hoping he didn’t drop anything on the way to his car, when he heard someone snarl, “Listen, you little shit, I’ve had just about enough of your lying mouth. I don’t want to hear another sound until we get home. Understood?” Blair winced when this was followed by the sound of muffled sobbing, and he debated whether to put the groceries down and interfere, or whether to put it off as just another frayed parent at the end of their rope who didn’t mean what they were saying. Then he heard a loud slap, and “I said shut up! Stop crying, you little maggot!”
That did it. Blair put the groceries down, wheeled around, and walked up to the man who was gripping a scared little boy with what looked like a really painful grip. “Hey!” he yelled, “That’s no way to treat anyone, especially not your kid.”
“It’s none of your business, asshole,” the man snarled at him.
The kid, whose gaze was flickering back and forth between Blair and the man, got a gleam in his eye. “He’s not my father,” he said, watching for Blair’s reaction.
“Is that true?” Blair asked.
“He’s my foster kid,” the man said, dropping the kid’s arm so he could tower better over Blair.
Blair stepped between the man and the kid. “Not anymore he’s not. Get in the car, kiddo, it’s the gray Corvair right there.”
When the boy started to comply, the man shoved Blair. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t just take my kid.”
“Watch me,” said Blair. He turned and ran, jumped into the driver’s seat of his car while the man yelled and chased after him, and squealed out of the parking lot just as the man started running back to his own car to give chase.
The kid stared at Blair from the front passenger seat with huge eyes. “You left your groceries, mister.”
Blair kept driving, white-knuckled. His heart was hammering in his chest, and the shriek of tires behind him told him the chase was on. “Yeah, I know.”
“Gary’s going to kill you,” the kid whispered.
“No, he’s not,” said Blair, all the fantasies of his childhood coming back in a rush. “He’s not going to do anything to either of us. I’m taking you to a police station and we’re going to report him, and he’ll never lay a hand on you again, okay?” The kid was silent, probably in shock. “What’s your name, big guy?” he asked.
“Jimmy,” said the kid. “Jimmy Ellison.”
Blair swerved around an SUV and ran a red light, leaving Gary behind. Only when he turned the corner to the police station did he breathe easy and look at the kid. “Nice to meet you, Jimmy. I’m Blair.” He turned off the engine and led Jimmy into the station.
“Blair’s a girl’s name,” Jimmy ventured.
“Yeah, but I’m not a girl,” said Blair, smiling down at the face that was already turning a sick shade of purple where Gary had hit him. He went up to the front desk.
“Can I help you?” asked the duty officer.
“Uh, yeah,” said Blair, “I -- my name is Blair Sandburg, and I’d like to report some child abuse. The guy is right behind us--”
“That’s okay, Mr. Sandburg. Go upstairs to the second floor and have a seat. We’ll handle this.”
Blair led Jimmy upstairs, where they were met by a clean-cut man who looked like a poster boy for GQ. “The duty officer said you wanted to report a case of child abuse?” When Blair nodded, he said, “I’m Detective Rafe. Why don’t you come have a seat at my desk and we’ll talk about it?”
Blair sank gratefully into the chair by Rafe’s desk, realizing only then how badly he was shaking. He’d been in Jimmy’s position more than once as a kid, when Naomi had left him with friends who were less than reliable, and when Gary charged him he’d no longer felt like the hero of his childhood rescue fantasies, he’d felt like a six-year-old kid up against a grown up who could tear him in half. He pulled himself together, reminding himself to breathe. Jimmy needed him.
“Can I have your name for the record?” asked Detective Rafe.
“Blair Sandburg,” he said. “I’m a student at Rainier, working on my doctorate.”
“And your name?”
“James Ellison,” said the kid.
“And how old are you?”
“Ten.” Blair looked over in surprise. The kid was pretty big for ten. Blair couldn’t have been half that size at that age.
“Okay, James, let’s start with you. Can you tell me what happened?”
Jimmy looked behind him at the door to the stairs.
“It’s okay, Jimmy, whoever did this to you, they’re not going to let him up here. They’ll talk to him down there if he comes in.”
Jimmy nodded and took a deep breath. “Gary--”
“Who’s Gary?”
“Gary Sullivan. My foster dad. I’ve been with him three months now. I got in trouble at school, and when Gary came home he got really mad at me. We went to the supermarket to get some of those frozen pizzas for dinner, and I kept telling him I hadn’t lied at school, and he told me to shut up and then he started hitting me.”
“Has he hit you before?”
Jimmy nodded. “I’m a bad kid, that’s why they gave me to Gary, because he’s good with bad kids. Anyway, Gary told me to stop crying, and then he hit me again, and that’s when this guy Blair told him to stop and told me to get in the car. And Gary chased us and we came right here.”
Detective Rafe nodded and made some notes on the form in front of him. “Mr. Sandburg?”
“Like Jimmy said, I heard him hit the kid and I walked back and got between them and brought the kid here.”
“Did you exchange blows with Mr. Sullivan?”
“No way. I figured the best thing was just to get the kid out of there.”
“You did the right thing, Mr. Sandburg.” Rafe made some more notes, and then he said gently, “Jimmy, we’re going to need to take some photographs of your injuries in that room over there for our records. Is that okay?”
Jimmy shrank in his chair. “Can Blair stay?”
“That’s fine,” said Rafe. “Come with me.”
Detective Rafe picked up a camera and took them into an interrogation room. Jimmy got quieter and quieter and kept pressing closer against Blair as they got closer to the room, and Blair kept up a soft, meaningless litany of “It’s okay, it’s going to be all right, I’m right here, it’s okay…”
Rafe closed the door and took a few pictures of Jimmy’s bruised cheekbone. Then he said, “Okay, it looks like you have some bruising on your arm there. I need to get pictures of everything. Can you turn this way?”
Jimmy looked down at the reddening finger marks and nodded unhappily before pulling off his tee shirt.
Blair was about to tell him to stop, that all they needed to see was the arm, but froze in horror before he could speak.
Rafe’s jaw tightened, but he snapped some pictures of the bruised and scarred torso, moving around to get pictures of everything. “It looks like he used a belt,” he said softly.
Jimmy nodded. “That wasn’t Gary, though. Gary just hits. That was Ted, my last keeper.”
“Jimmy, I’m sorry to ask you this because I’m sure it’s embarrassing, but I need you to take off your pants.”
Jimmy shot Blair a scared look, but Blair said, “It’s okay, I’m right here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Jimmy gave him a small nod, kicked off his shoes, and unzipped his jeans.
Rafe snapped more pictures while Blair talked, but Blair noticed a mottled patch on Jimmy’s ankle. “Jimmy? What’s that spot?”
“No one did that. I just burned myself. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Rafe put down the camera. “Okay, Jimmy, I think we’ve got enough. You can put your clothes back on now.” When Jimmy was dressed again, he took them both back out and said to the secretary by the door, “Carol, do you think you could take Jimmy over to the vending machine and get him a soda?”
“I want to stay with Blair,” said Jimmy.
“It’s okay,” said Blair, “I’ll be right here where you can see me. I’m not going to leave without you, I promise.”
Jimmy nodded reluctantly and let Carol tug him away.
Blair turned to Rafe. “You can’t send him back to that bastard.” Across the room, he saw Jimmy flinch and look back at him fearfully, almost as though he had heard Blair’s low mutter. “I won’t let him become a statistic.”
Rafe let out a heavy sigh. “I know how you feel, Mr. Sandburg. Believe me, I’m as pissed as you are about what that kid’s been through. But the system is overcrowded as it is; there’s nowhere else for him to go. I’m going to word my report as strongly as I can, try and get Mr. Sullivan on charges, or at least barred from acting as a foster parent, but the sad fact is a kid that old, with scars like that, isn’t going to get picked up by a good family. This is just going to keep happening to him unless…” he sized Blair up. “…you were to step in as a potential foster parent.”
Blair stared at him. “Are you crazy? They’d never give me custody of a kid. I’m a starving grad student, I’m not married, I barely make enough as a TA to keep myself alive, let alone a kid!”
“If all that wasn’t an issue, would you want him?” Rafe persisted.
Blair watched Jimmy watching him across the room over the rim of his soda can. “The Chinese say if you save someone’s life, you become their Blessed Protector. If I didn’t take care of him, it would eat away at me, wondering if he was okay. And I’ve been where he is, not nearly that bad, but … yeah. If I could, I’d take him home.”
“The rules for foster care are much more lenient than the rules for adoption. And unlike adoption, foster care means the parent or parents get government stipends to cover expenses. Like I said, the system is overcrowded. If I put in a word with Child Services, I can probably get him signed over to you.”
“Do it,” said Blair, worrying when he saw Jimmy choking on his soda. “Thank you, Detective.”
“Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”
It took a few hours to sign all the paperwork, but eventually Blair and Jimmy were on their way. Jimmy was half asleep as they drove home, but woke up and started eyeing the scenery nervously when Blair parked in the shadow of several abandoned warehouses. “What are we doing here?” he asked.
“This is where I live,” said Blair. He unlocked the warehouse door and led Jimmy up the stairs. “I should warn you, I have a roommate.”
“Roommate?” Jimmy asked, getting edgier.
“Yeah.” Blair opened the door and flipped on the lights. He walked over and reached into the cage to scratch Larry affectionately, grinning at the little ape’s hoots of delight. “Jimmy, meet my roommate, Larry.”
“A monkey? You have a monkey? Can I pet him?”
“He’s a Barbary ape,” said Blair. “Yeah, just don’t scare him.” He led Jimmy’s hand to stroke Larry’s head. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I need to feed Larry anyway, and I’m starving -- oh. I forgot; the groceries are back at the parking lot.” Jimmy looked dismayed at his part in that, but Blair quickly added, “So how about Chinese? Larry loves stir fry.” Getting food delivered was going to set him back a bit, but after the night they’d had, they all deserved a treat.
“Can we get scallion pancakes and stir fried rice?” asked Jimmy.
“Sounds good to me,” said Blair, adding garlic chicken and vegetarian stir fry to the order. Once he’d called it in, he sat down on the couch and said, “Jimmy, sit down, we need to figure some stuff out.”
Jimmy sat on the far end of the couch and waited. God, the kid was so self-contained it was scary.
“Okay, as you’ve probably figured out, I didn’t go out tonight figuring I’d be bringing you home with me. That’s not a bad thing,” he added when he saw how distressed Jimmy looked. “But it means I haven’t planned ahead for this. So for now, you’re going to be sleeping on the couch until I can get another futon in here. And you probably need clothes and stuff, right? So we’ll have to get you some.”
“What about school?” Jimmy asked.
“Huh? What about it?”
“How will I get to school and get home? The school bus doesn’t run here.”
“Man, maybe that’s why Naomi never sent me to school. Okay, I’ll drive you in the morning and pick you up in the afternoon. If I can’t pick you up for some reason, I’ll send a friend of mine, and let’s pick out a code word so you know it’s my friend and not a stranger, okay?” One great thing about growing up with Naomi, he knew all about how to tell the total strangers who were his new caretakers from the total strangers who actually meant harm.
Jimmy nodded. “What are the rules here?”
“What do you mean?”
“So I don’t get in trouble. What are the rules?”
Blair blinked at that. “Um, how about we make the rules up as we go along?” He cursed himself at the panic in Jimmy’s eyes. Stupid! To an abused kid, there probably wasn’t anything scarier than not knowing what would piss off the grown ups. “Okay, rules. Let me think here. Larry watches a lot of violent TV, but you’re too young for that, okay? Uh, you have to finish your homework before you go to bed. You don’t have to do it before you play,” he’d always hated that rule as a kid, “and you can ask for help if you need it, but it does have to get done or they’re going to think I’m a bad parent and take you away. That’s all I can think of.”
“What about bed time? Or chores?”
God help them both, Jimmy Ellison was about to get a dose of Sandburg parenting. “As long as you have enough energy to stay awake in school the next day, you can stay up as late as you want.” He grinned when Jimmy’s eyes bugged out at that. “You can go to friends’ houses when you want, but you have to tell me where you’re going. As for chores, Larry is my responsibility, and in a couple of weeks he’s going back to the university. Aside from that, we’ll switch off who takes out the garbage and cooks meals. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m wiped, man; I’m going to crash.”
Jimmy nodded and Blair hit the light switch and stumbled over to the futon. He was almost asleep when he heard, “Blair?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Jimmy.” He heard Jimmy tossing and turning for a while, and then heard Jimmy walk over to the garbage and pull something out, take it outside, and come back. “What’s up?” he asked.
“The box from the garlic chicken. I just … the smell bothered me. Is that okay?”
“Sure, big guy. Go to sleep.”
The next morning, after loaning Jimmy his toothbrush, convincing him that it really was okay to wear the same clothes two days in a row and driving him to school, Blair came home to find a strange woman in a suit jacket outside the warehouse.
“Can I help you?”
She turned to look at him. “Mr. Sandburg? I’m Susan McCormick, Jimmy’s caseworker.”
“Oh, okay. Would you like to come in?” He led her upstairs and put the kettle on the hot plate. “Can I get you some tea? Coffee?”
“Tea is fine,” she said, staring around the warehouse like she smelled something funny. Which she didn’t, because Larry’s cage was quite clean, thank you very much. At Blair’s urging, she finally sat down gingerly on the edge of the couch. “Mr. Sandburg--”
“Call me Blair,” he said, coming back with two steaming cups.
“Blair. Let me get right to the point. While I applaud your desire to look after Jimmy, I’m sure you agree that his best interests aren’t served by living in a drafty warehouse with a single man and his monkey.”
“Ape. Larry’s an ape, and he’s only here for a couple of weeks for a project I’m doing.”
“Be that as it may, this is no fit environment for a child.”
“Susan, if I can be frank, living in a drafty warehouse is way better for Jimmy than living with someone who hits him. But you’re right; I should start looking for somewhere else to live. This is all kind of sudden, you know? Can you bear with me a little?”
“Blair, I don’t think you fully realize what you’re signing up for. Jimmy has been through seven families and two group homes in less than two years. He’s been expelled from three schools for fighting and cheating on tests, he’s sullen and uncooperative, he talks back … he’s just not a child I’d recommend for a parent as … free-wheeling as you are, even if you could offer a suitable living environment, which you can’t.”
“Yeah, apparently you guys tried that hard-nosed approach already, and it scarred him, literally. I’m not going to send him back into the system. Now tell me what I have to do to keep him.”
The caseworker’s lips compressed, but she finally said, “Minimally, the state requires that Jimmy have a room separate from yours in a home that meets local health and safety codes, which this does not, and I would be checking in regularly to make sure he was being fed and clothed appropriately. Ideally, your home would be in a safe neighborhood close to a school and to other families, so that Jimmy could have friends and resources outside the home. If I give you six weeks, do you think you could find a new residence that met those requirements and buy enough clothes to get Jimmy from one laundry day to the next?”
“What about his old stuff? Doesn’t he already have clothes?”
Susan winced. “I’m afraid when I went to see Mr. Sullivan yesterday, he had … destroyed most of Jimmy’s things. You’ll be starting from scratch, I’m afraid.”
Blair’s mind was reeling. God, how was he going to find a two bedroom apartment for $850 a month? And where was he going to find money for clothes? “Six weeks? I’ll do my best.”
Susan smiled at him. “Good. Blair, I want to remind you that I’m not your enemy; I’m just trying to be Jimmy’s advocate. If you have any questions or concerns, it’s better to ask me how to proceed than to stumble and get in trouble later. Here’s my card if you need anything.”
Blair spent the day grading papers and making notes on Larry’s behavior, then, when his watch beeped, he drove to the school to pick up Jimmy. “How was your day?” he asked.
Jimmy shrugged.
“That good, huh? Okay, listen. We’re going to do some shopping, get you some clothes, and figure out what kind of foods you like.”
“What about my old stuff?”
“Bad news, big guy. Gary trashed your stuff. I’m sorry.” Blair watched the mixture of fury and sorrow flash across Jimmy’s face. “Hey. It’s just stuff, right? We’ll get you some new things.”
“Sure,” said Jimmy, but his voice was flat and he stared out the window.
“Was there something you really miss?” Blair ventured.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s all right, Jimmy. What was it?”
There was a long pause, and finally Jimmy said, “One of my mom’s scarves. It still smelled like her, a little.”
“That sucks, man. I’m sorry. I know what that’s like.” At Jimmy’s skeptical look, he said, “No, I really do know what that’s like. It was just me and my mom growing up, and lots of times she used to leave me with friends when she went away, and I never knew when she was coming back.”
“Did she come back?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, eventually. Sometimes it took longer than others, though. Did your mom leave you, or is she, uh…”
“She left,” said Jimmy. “And then Dad … died. If she knew, she would have come back. I know she would have.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I hope you find her again, big guy, I’m sure she misses you.” He parked the car by his favorite used clothing store. “Let’s get you some clothes, man.”
From his own childhood, he knew how embarrassing it was to buy clothes from the Salvation Army. Hence, the used clothing store, a little more expensive but minus the stigma. Jimmy touched all the clothes, picking the softest, most worn jeans and shirts, caring much less about the look of them. He eschewed a soft, pink Power Ranger’s shirt only reluctantly.
Blair thought a moment. “Jimmy? Do you have problems with your skin?”
Jimmy blushed and nodded. “It itches. And sometimes I feel if the detergent didn’t wash out right. Beth said I probably had allergies.”
“Beth sounds smart. When we go grocery shopping, we’ll test some stuff out and see what doesn’t bother you.”
“It’s no big deal,” Jimmy protested.
“You’re right, it’s not a big deal,” said Blair, “So let’s just do it.” He fingered a few racks of clothes until he found a few additions Jimmy liked, and then hauled their purchases up to the front.
Next they hit the supermarket.
“Can I get Captain Crunch?”
“No junk food,” said Blair.
“Oh come on, man, you don’t expect me to drink that green slime you had for breakfast,” Jimmy wheedled.
“How about Kashi?” Blair suggested. “Maybe not,” he said, when Jimmy grimaced.
When they finally negotiated Cheerios, chicken, orange juice and some vegetables, Blair grabbed some all-natural, hypo-allergenic soaps and toothpaste, then knelt and uncapped a few different detergents.
“What are you doing?” whispered Jimmy, “You’ll get us in trouble!”
“Don’t worry about it, Jimmy, we’re not stealing. I just want you to smell each of these and tell me if they bother you.”
Jimmy finally bent down and sniffed each of them, touched the insides of the caps to get a feel of the chemicals, frowning at each one. Undeterred, Blair pulled down more bottles, until Jimmy touched one and got a thoughtful expression. “This one’s not bad.”
“Okay, that one it is. Home?”
“Home,” Jimmy agreed.
Over the next two weeks, as Blair scrambled to find a place for them, he began to appreciate why Naomi used to cut and run all the time. Jimmy barely spoke, leaving Blair babbling on about obscure cultures and wondering if he was crowding the kid. The allergies were the least of the troubles: Jimmy was a picky eater, and he tossed and turned all night from the least bit of noise. He flinched whenever Blair touched him or moved too quickly. His grades were abysmal; he’d been diagnosed ADD, constantly distracted by the smallest movement or noise, unable to pay attention in class, but he reacted very badly to Ritalin and just had to manage as best he could. Blair tried to counter that by teaching him to meditate, but what came to Blair literally as naturally as breathing was anathema to Jimmy. Jimmy thought all that New Age stuff was weird, hated sitting, kept getting distracted.
“Just picture a dial,” Blair finally said. “Picture it in your head and dial the whole world down, all the sounds and sights, everything that distracts you.” And finally, Jimmy’s tense little body had relaxed, surrendering to deep, even breaths.
Then came the day when Blair was teaching Intro to Anthro and a call came through from JFK Middle School. Jimmy was in trouble. Visions of anaphylactic shock awhirl in his head, Blair yelled for Hank Martin to come up and take over, drove frantically to the school, and ran to the principal’s office. “Blair Sandburg, I’m James Ellison’s guardian. Someone said he was in trouble?”
The secretary looked him up and down: Out of breath, long hair flying in all directions, dressed in layers of flannel like an escapee from the high school down the block. “He’s in the office, you can go in,” she said.
Blair opened the door and walked in, startled but relieved to see Jimmy sitting opposite the principal, kicking the chair and sucking at his split lip. “Come in, Mr. Sandburg, I’m Principal Yearling. You’re Jimmy’s guardian?”
Blair took the seat next to Jimmy’s, trying to get a clue as to what had happened, but Jimmy just eyed Blair warily. “That’s right.”
“I don’t envy you. This one’s a tough row to hoe.”
Blair’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Jimmy’s been in and out of my office ever since he came to this school, and he’s been bounced all over the system for years, even before his father died.” Jimmy flinched at that, scowling at Yearling. “He’s consistently late for classes or truant, standing in the hall staring at nothing like a space cadet. He starts fights on the playground, teachers have caught him cheating on tests--”
“I didn’t cheat! The answers were already there!”
Blair held up his hands. “Whoa, hold on! Maybe we should just talk about what happened today, okay? Principal Yearling, Jimmy’s pretty upset; I’d appreciate it if you don’t take potshots at him.”
“I wasn’t … fine, Mr. Sandburg. Jimmy made a racial slur which escalated to a fistfight--”
“I didn’t!”
“Maybe this is just a misunderstanding,” said Blair. “What exactly happened?”
“I just said I didn’t want sit next to Miguel because he smelled like Mexican. I wasn’t being racist.”
“You said someone smelled like their race,” Yearling started.
Blair cut him off. “Smelled Mexican, or smelled like Mexican?”
“Like Mexican,” said Jimmy. “He smelled really strongly of chilies and it made me feel dizzy.”
“Jimmy has really bad allergies and chemical sensitivities,” said Blair. “I’m still trying to figure them all out. I’ve heard of cases where allergies can be so strong that someone can break out in hives if they’re kissed an hour after the person kissing them has eaten something they’re allergic to. The smell might have triggered something, made it hard for him to breathe.”
“Mr. Sandburg, you’re way out on a limb here. I’m well within my rights to expel Jimmy.”
“No need, I’m removing him from your school,” said Blair. He turned to Jimmy, who was sitting immobile, doing a good impression of a wall and unsure what was going on. “Jimmy? If I get you books and write out assignments for you, do you think you can learn with me?”
“Wait a minute, you can’t home-school him! You’re not qualified!”
“I’ve got a Masters from Rainier, and if I’m not qualified to teach, that’s news to the Anthro students I left to come here. I’ll talk to the school board and figure out the right curriculum, but Jimmy’s not coming back here, understood? Come on, Jimmy, let’s go.”
Jimmy followed him out, a few paces behind, his whole body tense. “Blair? Can you really do that?”
“I was home-schooled almost my whole life,” said Blair. “But I’ve got to warn you, Jimmy, this means you’re going to have to come with me to the U, or study in the warehouse when I’m there. Are you going to be okay with that, or is it going to be too disruptive?”
“No, that’s perfect! I think better when I’m with you. When you’re concentrating, you breathe like when you’re meditating, and it reminds me to turn down the dial in my head.” He stopped in the hall. “This is my locker; I need to get my stuff.” He fumbled with the dial, and then he suddenly turned and grinned. “That was so cool! You told off the principal!”
Blair nearly staggered under the brilliance of that grin, suddenly realizing it was the first time he’d ever seen Jimmy smile.
They drove back to Rainier and Blair guided Jimmy to a seat in the front row. “Thanks, Hank, I’ll take it from here. Okay, we were discussing Mead’s idealization of her subjects…”
Joel Taggart was having a lousy day. At least today there had been no bombs to defuse, thank God, but he was having a hell of a time combing through the wreckage of this drug lab and trying to figure out what the hell a monkey was doing there. He’d already called the zoo, and they said they weren’t missing any, Animal Control was tied up with an incident down at the dog show, so Joel was stuck with it. Why did these things always happen to him?
“Oh man,” he heard behind him.
“What happened to our place?”
Joel turned around and saw a long-haired, tree-hugging hippie with a stocky little boy in tow. His eyes narrowed. Normally he was a pretty easygoing guy, but he drew the line at drug dealers hooking kids on their crap. “Are you the owner, sir?” he asked.
“Uh yeah, I rent this place,” said the hippie, gesturing to the second door of the warehouse. “Larry!” The monkey wrestled itself free of its handler and flung itself at the hippie, gibbering wildly, but the hippie and the kid just kept babbling at it until it settled down. “What happened here?”
“I’ll be asking the questions,” Joel told the hippie. “Who are you and what the hell are you doing with a kid and a monkey?”
“Ape,” the kid corrected.
“I’m Blair Sandburg, and this is Jimmy Ellison,” said the hippie. “I’m his guardian.”
“Uh huh? And does Child Services know you’re keeping him in a drug lab?”
“What? What drug lab?”
“The one that exploded over there.”
“Really? Oh man, I didn’t know!”
“How could you live next to a drug lab and not know about it? Why else would you be living in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere?”
“Blair’s not a junkie!” Jimmy yelled.
Joel shook his head. “We’ll sort it out back at the station. Come on, I’m taking you in. Turn around, Mr. Sandburg.”
“Look, I didn’t have anything to do with this. I swear.”
“You want me to add resisting arrest to your rap sheet, Michael Jackson? I said turn around and assume the position!”
Blair dropped his backpack and turned, let Joel frisk and cuff him and guide him to a police car. Jimmy scooted in beside Blair and scrubbed angrily at his eyes. “What’s going to happen to me? They wouldn’t send me back to Gary, would they?”
Joel put the monkey in on the other side, got in and drove. This was definitely shaping up to be one surreal case.
“Jimmy, listen to me. This is just a big mistake, and we’ll straighten it out at the station. But whatever happens, they’re not going to send you back to Gary.”
“But if you go to jail--”
“I’m not going to jail, Jimmy. Right now the only thing we need to figure out is where we’re sleeping tonight.”
“What about a shelter?” Jimmy asked reluctantly.
“No good. I’m your foster parent, not your adoptive parent. I go to a shelter, they take you away. The university might have some emergency housing, otherwise we can just crash at my office.” Blair rubbed Jimmy’s back, and the kid closed his eyes and started breathing deep and even. “It’s going to be okay, Jimmy. It’s going to be okay.”
Between the explosion, the drugs, the hippie, the kid and the monkey, Joel wasn’t sure which department had jurisdiction, so he took the trio up to Major Crimes just to be on the safe side. “Joel, you didn’t tell me the circus was in town,” quipped Henri Brown.
“Very funny.” Joel explained the situation as best he could and had a uniform take the monkey down to lockup for the time being.
“Look, we were here just a few weeks ago,” said Blair, “We talked to a detective … what was his name? Snappy dresser, sounded like … Rafe, that was it.”
“From Juvenile?” Brown asked. “I’ll send the kid down to talk to him. You, on the other hand, are going to sit down and answer some questions.”
“I’ll take the kid down,” said Joel.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m staying with Blair,” Jimmy snapped, backing up against Blair.
“Jimmy,” said Blair, “Rafe was really nice and really smart. He’s not going to let anything happen to you. I promise I’m not going to leave you, I’ll be right here.”
“Yeah, but what if they take me away?” The kid whispered, crying openly now.
Blair knelt awkwardly, off-balance because of the cuffs. “Jimmy, if they take you away, I’ll get them to give you back to me. Jimmy, look at me. Listen to me.” He met Jimmy’s eyes. “I am NOT leaving you.”
Jimmy hugged Blair tight, and kicked and yelled when Joel finally pulled him out to the stairwell. “No! Blair! Blair!”
Detective Rafe looked up as Joel dragged Jimmy up to his desk. “What the … I remember you. Jamie, right?”
“Jimmy,” the kid corrected, wiping his tears.
“Yeah, I remember you. You were here with that long-haired guy with the girl’s name. Blair.” He eyed Joel worriedly. “So what brings you to the attention of the bomb squad, huh, Jimmy? Was Blair hurt?”
“They’re arresting him!” Jimmy said.
“Drug lab exploded, they were living in the warehouse next door. With a monkey.” Joel supplied.
“Blair doesn’t do drugs! He doesn’t even take cold medicine!”
Rafe shook his head. “Kiddo, there are different kinds of drugs--”
“I know that. I’ve lived with people who freebased,” Jimmy snapped. “Blair doesn’t do drugs.”
“Then he’s got nothing to worry about. They’re talking to him upstairs, right? Well, they’ll ask him where he was during the explosion and all that, and then they’ll let him go.” Rafe smiled reassuringly. “So tell me how it’s going, Jimmy. Is Blair treating you okay?”
Jimmy nodded. “He doesn’t hit me. He doesn’t even get mad. And I don’t have to go to school anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Rafe asked. “What do you do when you’re supposed to be in school?”
“It’s called home-schooling, except I don’t do it at home, I go to the university with Blair,” Jimmy explained. “He makes me read a lot. I don’t like that cause it’s boring. But yesterday he took me to a dig and we got to see all these Indian artifacts. That was cool. And the day before that, we played basketball at the gym. And then every night we meditate and then we go to sleep.”
Joel shot Rafe a worried look. “Meditate?” he asked.
“Yeah. I thought it was weird at first, and then it made me feel funny, but now I do it all the time. And I like listening to him do it.”
“How do you meditate?” Rafe asked, trying to keep a neutral tone.
“Oh, it’s really easy. You sit like this,” Jimmy squirmed around until he was sitting cross-legged, “And then you imagine a dial in your head to turn down the world, and then you breathe and listen to your heart beating.” Jimmy saw the relieved looks on their faces and said, “What? What did I say?”
“And the monkey?”
“Ape. Larry is a Barbary ape,” Jimmy corrected. “Blair wants to see if television violence makes primates more ag-aggressive. So Larry gets to watch TV but Blair makes me put on headphones and read then. But that’s okay because I can hear through the headphones and see the reflection of the TV in the windows, so I still get to watch.” He grinned.
Rafe pulled Joel aside. “I’m not sure what to do with this one, Joel. This has got to be the weirdest parenting style I’ve ever seen, but the kid looks healthy and he actually sounds happy. And if you knew what he was coming from a month ago, that’s a freaking miracle.”
“Yeah?”
“You should see this kid’s file, I mean, a month ago I would have predicted he’d be one of those dead kids where the news shows ask how we screwed up, why no one caught it in time. This Blair guy was a total flake, I thought, but at least he cared, that had to be something, so I pretty much shanghaied him into taking the kid.” Rafe hesitated. “The kid had belt scars. Deep ones. His hospital records were in his file, and there were a couple of broken bones over the past year. I don’t know what’s best for this kid. That Blair guy would never hit him, but there’s lots of ways to ruin someone’s childhood without laying a hand on them.”
“Well, it still doesn’t sound right, living in a warehouse with a monkey, but archeological digs are definitely a step up from broken bones.” Joel glanced over at Jimmy, who was sitting frozen in his chair, eyes glazed. “Jimmy? Jimmy, can you hear me?” He shook the kid with no response. Finally he pinched the kid lightly, and Jimmy blinked and looked at him.
“What happened?” Jimmy asked.
“You blacked out,” said Joel. “Are you okay?”
“I was listening … she’s yelling at Blair, but it’s not his fault. You have to tell her it’s not his fault.”
Joel had no idea what the kid was blathering on about, but the only way to calm him down was to go back up to Major Crimes with the promise to check on Blair. He got up to Major Crimes to find Blair arguing with a woman, “Please, come on, it’s just a week and a half until we move into the new apartment; how was I supposed to know there was a drug lab next door? You can’t take him away now, he’s--”
“There you are,” said Joel. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I just wanted to drop off the spare keys.” He turned to the woman. “You’re from Child Protective Services?” At her nod, he said, “Blair and Jimmy are staying with me while they get their feet under them.” Blair was looking up at Joel like he was the messiah, and Joel felt a small glow of pride.
“And you are?”
“Joel Taggart, the best on the bomb squad,” said Brown. “Mr. Sandburg, thanks for your patience. You can go now. Joel, we can reach him at your house if we have further questions?”
“No problem,” said Joel. “Come on, Sandburg.”
Blair followed him out. “Oh man, you really saved the day back there. I promise we won’t be in your hair, just a week and a half and then we move into the new place.”
“Just promise me the monkey won’t tear the place apart,” said Joel. When they came within ten feet of Rafe’s desk, Jimmy launched himself at Blair, burying his face in Blair’s shirt.
“Whoa, hey, it’s okay,” Blair soothed. “Jimmy, we’re going to stay with Joel for a few days until we can move into the new apartment.”
“All of us?”
“All of us,” Blair agreed. “See, there’s Larry.”
Jimmy pulled away, looking embarrassed. “Sorry for being such a sissy,” he said.
“Hey, it’s okay to be upset. This is the second time in a month your life’s been turned upside down,” Blair reasoned.
Joel led them down to his car. “So what exactly do you do, Sandburg? You’re a teacher?” He remembered Jimmy’s comments about the university.
“Not quite yet. I’m working towards a doctorate in Anthropology. But I’m a TA at the moment.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means students sign up for a class with a famous teacher who spends most of his time on expeditions to Bali or Kazakhstan, and only comes in for two lectures. The rest of the time, I teach the class.”
“That sounds like fraud to me,” Joel opined.
“Not really. I’ve had a lot of students ask me what classes I’m running next semester so they can work their schedules around my classes. No one’s being bilked by the system, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Joel parked the car. “Home sweet home. I’ll call the squad and have them send your stuff here when they’re done with separating your things from evidence.”
“Thanks, man. Nice house,” said Blair, looking up at the two story ranch house.
Joel reddened. “Yeah, I bought it when things were different. Come on, let’s go.”
“Different how?” Jimmy asked, but before Joel could put him off, they crossed the threshold and Jimmy collapsed on the floor, clutching his ears.
“Jimmy? Jimmy!” Blair was checking him over frantically.
“Shut it off! Too loud!” Jimmy screamed.
“There’s nothing here,” said Blair, “it’s quiet.”
“Shut it off!”
Joel had an odd thought. He hurried into the living room and pulled a little device out of the wall. When he came back, Jimmy was sitting up and shaking his head.
“What was that?” Jimmy asked. “It sounded awful.”
Joel exchanged a look with Blair. “It’s a sonic insect and rodent repellant,” he said, “But it’s higher than a dog whistle, no one could have heard that.”
Blair got a very strange look on his face. “God, it’s been right in front of me the whole time and I didn’t see it. Jimmy, remember I told you I’m doing my project on Sentinels?”
Jimmy nodded. “Protectors, right?”
“Yeah, except what made them special is that they had all five senses heightened. Sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing … don’t you get it? You don’t have allergies or ADD, your senses are just working overtime!” said Blair, gesturing wildly in his excitement. “That’s why you concentrate better when you hear me breathing, because it reminds you to turn the dial down, turn down all the sensory input. Jimmy, do you realize what this means?”
“I’m a freak,” Jimmy muttered.
“You’re not a freak,” Joel said automatically, though he wondered when exactly reality had taken such a detour into the weird.
“Jimmy, if anything, it would mean you were a superhero, not a freak,” said Blair. “But what it means in the meantime is I can teach you control. You could choose when to see and hear better than other people and when to shut out the distraction. We’ve got to run some tests, I can get together some materials from the U…”
Joel looked at Jimmy, but the kid wasn’t even really taking this in, just overwhelmed by too many shocks in one day. “Whoa there,” Joel stopped Blair, “Plenty of time for tests later. For now, let’s get you both settled.”
A few days later, Simon called Joel into his office. “So I hear you’ve got some houseguests?”
Joel rubbed his face ruefully, unsure whether to scowl or smile. “You’d think if I was going to wind up with three messy, hyperactive children, I would have at least gotten some action first.”
Simon smiled, then launched into it. “We just got a call: they’ve found a double-tap set up at the Westbridge Center--”
“Okay, I’ll send Osterman down there,” said Joel.
Simon looked Joel in the eye. “Weren’t you the one who told me last time that Osterman wasn’t up to a double-tap yet?”
“So I’ll have Phillips back him up. He’s got three years on the squad.”
“Phillips is a chem specialist; he doesn’t know jack about shrapnel.” Simon looked at his watch. “There isn’t much time, Joel. They need you down there.”
Joel stood up, his stomach clenching. “I’m sorry, Simon, I just can’t.” He ran out and drove home, still shaking. When he came in, the house was a wreck. “What the hell happened here?”
“Larry got loose, I’m cleaning it up,” said Blair. “I was going to have it done by the time you got home, what are you doing here? You just left.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Joel, trying to get himself under control.
“Whoa, hey, I said I was sorry, no need to bite my head off, man. You want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“I said, I don’t want to talk about it. Leave it alone.”
“Come on, man, work with me here. Something’s eating you--”
“What would you know about it?” Joel snapped. “Your goddamn house blows up and you just say, ‘whoa, hey, no problem’. Some of us have to live in the real world! People die if we make mistakes, we can’t just start over!”
“Who died?” Blair murmured.
“N-no one. But they could have. I screwed up a couple times lately. And now every time I see a bomb, I keep remembering…”
“Listen to me, Joel. Fear is not about a lack of ability.” His voice was low, soothing, and Joel found himself listening despite his anger. “It happened to this anthropology student that I knew. He was out doing research in Nepal and an avalanche hit. So he goes out with the rescue team and they come across this rope bridge -- 2,000-foot drop, Joel. He starts making his way across and all of a sudden he locks up. The sherpa guide comes up behind him, grabs him by the arm and says ‘This is not about you.’ You hear what I’m saying? It’s not about you.”
Yeah, that was exactly what it felt like, like all his muscles locked up, like he was on the edge of a precipice. “And then what happened?”
“Then he made his way across. You see what I’m saying, Joel? It’s mind over matter.”
Joel blinked. His engagement had broken up over this, the department shrink had told him it could take years to fully deal with the trauma, and now this guy had come out of nowhere and shined a searchlight into all the dark corners, shown him he didn’t have to be afraid. It wasn’t about him. It was about the bomb. “You, uh, still know this guy?”
“Yeah, it was me.”
Joel laughed. “Really?”
“Yeah,” said Blair, settling in comfortably. “Come on. Let me tell you about Katmandu.”
Joel smiled. “Save it for when I get home. I’ve got to get back to work.” He drove over to the civic center. “It’s okay, Osterman, I’ll take over,” he said, eying the device. His stomach turned over.
“You sure about that, Taggart?” Osterman asked.
“Move,” said Joel.
There was a kind of art to defusing a bomb, but mostly it was logic. Seeing the mess and breaking it down in his head into its components, translating intricacy to simplicity. He’d lost faith in that, lost faith in his ability to make sense of chaos, after the hospital bombing. But he heard Blair in his head, ‘It’s not about you.’ Joel knelt by the bomb, put the timer out of his mind, and got to work.
When he came home, he walked right past the man and boy kneeling on the carpet with a dozen tiny bottles and walked straight to the fridge to grab a beer. Suitably mellowed, he turned back to the pair.
“How did it go?” Blair asked.
“You were right,” said Joel. “Thanks. And thanks for not making a big deal about it.”
Blair looked up and smiled. “I’ve been there, man. My mom’s been dragging me to shrinks since I was out of pampers.”
“This one’s clay too, but it doesn’t taste as gritty. Is it a different type?” Jimmy interrupted.
“What’ve you guys got there?” Joel asked.
“I wanted to see if he could taste the difference between substances diluted in water, sort of sensitize his palate,” said Blair. “Yeah, Jimmy, that one was porcelain clay.”
Joel chuckled. “Man, we could sure use a guy like that around the station. You should think about the force in a few years, when you grow up. Our own walking crime lab.”
Jimmy shook his head. “I wanna be a Ranger, like on those cool commercials. I could track drug dealers through the jungle and stuff.”
“Yeah? That sounds pretty exciting.” Joel pulled out his notebook and sat down at the kitchen table. “Don’t let me interrupt. I just need to go over some stuff from the crime scene.”
“Yeah?” Jimmy asked. “What kinda stuff? I mean, you just do bombs, right? So one explosion should be just like another.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” said Joel. “See, there’s dozens of different types of bombs, and hundreds of materials. You can tell by traces what the bomb was made of and what the bomber’s style is, and where they put the bomb tells you a lot too. But mostly I defuse bombs, so I get to see all that material intact instead of combing through wreckage.”
“Like at our place,” said Jimmy. “So what kind was this one?”
“This was a double-tap,” said Joel. “Nasty tactic, plays off human nature. You set off a small bomb with nails or shrapnel, it goes off and injures maybe ten or twenty people. Then you time a really big bomb to go off fifteen minutes later when the area is crowded with rescue workers and rubberneckers, collapse the whole building on top of them.” He watched the outrage play across the two civilians’ faces. “The bombs themselves are pretty basic: cheap digital watch as a timer, homemade plastique.”
“Plastic? Like toys?” asked Jimmy.
“No, plastique. It’s pretty popular because until you put the charge in and trigger it, it’s soft and squishy, goes anywhere and won’t explode. This is the third time this guy has set this up; we were lucky someone spotted this one before it could go off.”
“The explosion at the mall on the news?” Blair asked.
“And the hospital almost two months ago.” Joel shuddered at the memory of working to defuse the larger bomb only to have the smaller, undetected bomb suddenly explode behind him, the shrapnel destroying both the hallway and his nerves in an instant.
“What a sicko.”
“You said it. So I need to figure out from the samples who made it before this guy wants to get his jollies again.”
“Can I see?” Jimmy asked.
Joel was about to say an automatic ‘no’ when a thought occurred to him. “Sure, Jimmy, give it a shot.”
Jimmy looked back at Blair for confirmation. “I’ll be right here,” Blair assured him. “Just dial up taste and smell, like we were doing earlier.” He sat back and watched, eager and fascinated, as Jimmy reached out to first sniff and then lick the little knob of putty Joel held.
Jimmy jerked back and made a face. “Blech, gross!”
“What did you taste?” Blair asked.
“Tastes like someone dumped a whole bucket of salt in a glass of Country-Time Lemonade,” said Jimmy, wiping his mouth in distaste.
“Jesus,” said Joel.
“What?” said Blair.
“Two of the major components of plastique are salt and methanol, otherwise known as wood alcohol,” said Joel.
“Wood alcohol? And you let him taste it? He could go blind!”
“Not in this small an amount,” Joel reassured him. “You actually have small amounts of it any time you drink diet soda. Methanol is used to make aspartame.”
“Fake lemonade,” Blair realized. “Okay, Jimmy, filter those out and dig deeper.”
Jimmy took another cautious taste, frowning in concentration. Then the frown slowly eased and his face subtly slackened.
Blair started rubbing Jimmy’s back. “Come on, Jimmy, come back. Whatever it is you’re zoning on, leave it and come on back.”
The animation came back to Jimmy’s face. “Sorry. I did it again.”
“Don’t be sorry. It happens, and you’re doing great.” Blair smiled at him. “Honestly, what you’re doing is pretty amazing.”
Jimmy smiled back at the praise and screwed up his face in concentration. He ran through the catalogue of the bomb’s components itself. Then he started noting odd residues, the rusty taste of the nails and a sour, oily taste which, after over an hour of scrounging around the house looking for counterparts, Jimmy hesitantly identified as machine oil. The last scent and taste confused him again. “I think this is wrong. I mean, maybe it’s like the lemonade, something that’s really something else?”
“What is it?” Joel asked.
“Beans and beets.”
Joel frowned and thought about that. “Beans and beets? Nothing comes to mind.”
“Or maybe it’s just what you think it is,” said Blair. “Maybe the guy was eating beets and beans.”
Joel made a face. “No one would eat those in combination. It would taste disgusting.”
“Beets and beans, beets and beans … and machine oil? Joel, what about a cannery? Maybe this guy is working out of a vegetable cannery.”
Joel thought about it. “Worth a try, there can’t be that many in Cascade. Let me check around. Worse comes to worst, I can always check up the chemical composition of beets and beans and run them by forensics for some sort of chemical compound I’m forgetting.”
But sure enough, a sweep of Kimmel’s Cans, the second place Joel checked, turned up a little nook in the upstairs storage space with methanol, aluminum powder and the rest of the needed ingredients for plastique. A check of the factory workers resulted in a match for the partial print on the timer, a man whose cousin had won the state lottery recently and who was jealous of the resulting notoriety. An open and shut case, until it came time for Joel to write up the report.
Joel tapped on Simon’s door and nodded at the man who was shaking hands with Joel’s fellow Captain. “Hey, Rafe.”
“Joel! I finally got that transfer. Meet the newest member of Major Crimes,” said Rafe.
“That’s great!” Joel slapped him on the back. “Congratulations.”
“Rafe, if you’ll excuse us?” said Simon. He waited for Rafe to go, then waved Joel’s report aloft. “What the hell is this crap, Taggart? You said an anonymous tip led you to check out the cannery?”
“What’s the problem? Major Crimes gets anonymous tips all the time.”
“The general line to Major Crimes does. Or detectives who spend a lot of time and money cultivating informants. Bomb squad captains don’t get private leads, last time I checked. Why isn’t there a log of this? The defense attorney’s going to tear this apart!”
Joel shut the door firmly and sat down. “Simon, I need you to hear me out.”
“I’m listening.”
“You see -- damn, Sandburg explained this so much better…”
“Your new roommate?”
“Yeah, see, there’s something weird about the kid. He’s like a bloodhound or something, sees and smells and hears things that are right on the money, but that no one else would pick up on, like dog whistles. So I let the kid taste a bit of the plastique--”
“You let a ten-year-old kid tamper with evidence? Taggart, I’m going to have your ass in a sling if we lose this guy because of you.”
“Not tamper, test! The kid is good, Simon, I’ve never seen anything like it, my hand to God.”
“You expect me to believe this crap?” Simon growled.
“Okay then, you tell me how I figured the cannery out.” Joel sat back and crossed his arms.
Simon grimaced. “Damn. All right, I’ll cover for you on this one, say I got a call asking for the guy in charge of the bomb squad and passed the lead on to you. But I don’t want this kid anywhere near any more investigations. Aside from the mess he’d make of chain of evidence, I don’t want to think about a ten-year-old kid going to bomb sites or getting targeted by some con out for revenge. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Joel, although his heart sank a little. Much as he agreed with Simon that police work was no place for a kid, he couldn’t help wishing there was some way to harness Jimmy’s miraculous talents to save more lives. It seemed literally criminal waiting eight more years to use those amazing senses.
Joel kept his word, though, and for the next week he kept his work separate from his home life. Home life. Since the nightmares started and Jane left, Joel hadn’t really felt like he had anything to go home to, no close family, no friends he didn’t feel embarrassed and defensive around. Now he looked forward to coming home to Sandburg’s cooking and Jimmy’s excited reports of what they’d done all day. Weird as it was to admit, he would be sorry to see them move out.
Jimmy hate-hate-hated tests. Always had. He’d hated them in school when the answers were still faint on the chalkboard from the previous class’s pop quizzes, making him seem like a cheater. The tests Blair devised for his senses were only marginally better; Blair never accused him of cheating, sometimes the tests were even fun, but Jimmy hated being reminded of the two worst facts of his existence: that he was a freak, and that his freakishness was the only reason Blair would want an annoying little kid around cramping his style. But he didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so he didn’t complain, not ever. Blair might only want him for his senses, but Blair was really cool, and Jimmy didn’t want to disappoint him.
This test, though, was the worst. It was an aptitude test to measure how smart he was now so Child Services could keep measuring his progress as he studied under Blair. Some of the questions were really hard, and Jimmy couldn’t tell if he was supposed to play dumb so Blair would look like a really good teacher later, or if that tactic would make CPS think Jimmy was a stupid problem child who was too much for Blair to handle on his own. Jimmy felt sick to his stomach from nervousness.
The phone rang, and Blair looked up from his papers. “Blair Sandburg. Yeah? Oh god. Yeah, we’ll be right there.” Blair hung up and met Jimmy’s questioning eyes. “That was Joel. There’s been an explosion downtown, an office building collapsed. They’re having trouble finding people in the wreckage. He wanted to know if we could help. You could hear people so they know where to dig. You think you’re ready for this, big guy? If you’re not, tell me and I’ll call Joel back right now. I shouldn’t have okayed it without checking first. There’s going to be a lot of hurt people there, it’s going to be very upsetting.”
Jimmy straightened his shoulders and met Blair’s gaze. “I can handle it,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The wreckage was quite possibly the worst thing Jimmy had ever experienced, worse than getting beaten, worse than his mother leaving, worse than anything. The smell was a horrible mix of dust storm, chem lab, and barbecue. His eyes started making sense of the splashes of blood and the grayish-pink scraps of body parts, and he found himself using Blair’s sturdy body as a shield, breathing in the scent of flannel, closing his eyes against Blair’s back.
But the screams were the worst, because they were begging for someone to help them, they were so hurt and scared, and he knew he’d be dreaming of them forever if he didn’t fix it, but he didn’t know how, and Joel was going to be so disappointed, Blair was … Blair was turning, kneeling to look him in the eye.
“Jimmy? This was a mistake, you shouldn’t be here. I’m so sorry--”
Jimmy shook his head. “I have to make them stop crying.” He looked up at Blair. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Hmm. Start with hearing. Shut out the screams, otherwise you’ll miss the survivors who are unconscious.” Jimmy was only too happy to obey. “Hear all the heartbeats,” Blair continued. “Match as many as you can with the rescue workers. The ones that are left have to be victims. Then follow the sounds. I’ll be right with you the whole time.”
Blair kept his word. He never let go of Jimmy’s shoulder as Jimmy wandered the wreckage, calling out when he could hear people trapped inside. The fire chief almost lost it when he saw Jimmy in the middle of his operation, but Joel handled that; Joel took the man away and talked and when the fire chief came back he just started gently talking to Jimmy about other sounds to watch for, odd creaks and moans that meant another collapse was going to happen. Jimmy just shouted instructions and tried not to feel sick or frightened. And the firemen and the police followed Jimmy and the ambulances came and went, and Blair asked him if he wanted to take a break, but he could hear a heartbeat fluttering too fast, too weak, and he couldn’t stop now. He pressed on, his voice cracking when that little butterfly heart gave out, but he just latched onto the next one and kept going until he had no voice left and the screams were all gone and Blair was hugging him and so was Joel, and they took him down the line and he shook a lot of sooty, grimy hands and then his mouth was filled with vanilla ice cream and his other senses were diverted by the feel and smell of Blair’s jacket draped around him, and Blair just held him while he cried.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, just let it out,” Blair’s voice guided him through the grief and shock as gently and firmly as it guided him through a zone-out.
“I got ice cream all over your shirt,” said Jimmy, embarrassed. “And I cried all over you.”
Blair shrugged and squeezed Jimmy tight. “So we’ll go home and shower. You were incredible, Jimmy.”
“The senses,” Jimmy said dully. He didn’t mean to be ungrateful, but he was too exhausted for this now.
Blair shook his head. “Yeah, that was incredible too, but that’s not what I meant. I can’t believe how brave you were. The firemen and the police are grown ups and they’re trained to do this stuff, but you were doing as much as they were. You pushed yourself to the breaking point and you didn’t give up until everyone who could be saved was rescued. You’re amazing, big guy. A lot of people owe their lives to you. That’s what’s incredible.”
Jimmy clenched his eyes shut because he didn’t want to cry anymore, and Blair just wrapped him up in his arms and carried him to Joel’s car.
The next couple of days were a bit of a blur. Blair tried to get Jimmy to talk about what he was feeling. Jimmy yelled at him to leave him alone, but he had to admit that when he talked about the severed hand and the high-heeled shoe and the butterfly heart he’d lost, it made a little of the hurt and guilt go away. Reporters had laid siege to the house, hoping to get photos of the “miracle-child”, but Blair called in sick from Rainier despite Jimmy’s protests, Joel stayed home, and they all just sat around watching TV and hanging out until the reporters were diverted by other stories.
But finally it was time to move. Larry was sent back to Rainier, Jimmy stuffed his new clothes into a backpack and Joel drove them and Blair’s boxes of artifacts and books to the new apartment.
“It’s pretty bare,” Blair warned. “I mean, we lost most of the furniture when the warehouse blew, so we’re going to be camping out on the floor for a couple of days.”
“It’ll be okay,” said Jimmy, but they both stopped in shock when they opened the door. Detective Rafe and a couple of other cops and firemen Jimmy recognized from the station and the explosion all stood in the little, fully-furnished living room, holding up a banner that said ‘Welcome Home’.
“Surprise!” they yelled.
“What is this?” Blair asked.
Joel grinned. “A lot of people called in to ask what they could do to thank you two for what you did. So Rafe and Brown and I all put our heads together and made a list, and people started donating what they could.”
A woman stepped forward with a smile and said, “And being men, of course, they were forgetting half the important things, like pots and pans to cook in, or plates to eat off of, so I took over. It’s good to meet you, Jimmy.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you, Rhonda,” Joel assured her. He smiled down at Jimmy. “So what do you think?”
Jimmy looked around, taking in the second-hand couch, the new beds in the bedrooms, the TV and bookcases, and the near-strangers, including Blair, who had in so short a time shown him more love than he could remember ever receiving. “I think,” he said softly, “I think I’m home.”
End.